Podcast
Landless in Los Angeles
Hosted by Ruth @roofless · EN
Survival, justice and belonging for The Unhoused, 100% made in public
By Ruth @roofless, host of weekly X Displacement Spaces (Sundays 7pm PST), an ongoing discussion for and about global displacement and local housing and homelessness
roofless.substack.com
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🆕 Inside Safe AUDIT
Jun 1800:12:32Tap to summarizeI’m Ruth and I live outside in Los Angeles.This article follows-up on one I wrote in October 2023:🔗 All data is linked at the end of the article, so you can check it out and draw your own conclusions! Please let me know what you think in a comment.66% of people who enrolled in Inside Safe are indoors.4,994 Participant Statuses:* 3,305 indoors* 1,606 outside* 83 deceasedNearly 5,000 people enrolled in Inside Safe by New Years’ Eve and an additional 346 people enrolled in January. As of January 31, 5,340 participants have enrolled in the Inside Safe program “ISP”.21%* 12% of Inside Safe participants moved into permanent housing.As of the end of last year, 609 people had moved from Inside Safe to permanent housing “PH”:Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.* 288 people are on subsidies like Section 8 housing choice vouchers “HCVs”,* 283 moved to permanent supportive housing “PSH” units, like those built and financed through the City’s Measure HHH, as they become available. PSH units are subsidized by Project-Based vouchers “PHVs”.* 38 people got market-rate “MR” (unsubsidized) housing. It’s unclear if the Inside Safe program “ISP” assisted these participants in securing private leases.In addition to the 12% who are permanently housed, 54% of Inside Safe participants are sheltered.* 2,552 participants enrolled in ISP are in interim housing “IH”/shelter.* 1,846 Inside Safe participants are in hotels and motels (37%):* 1,432 people are staying in motels that have booking or occupancy agreements with the City.* 414 participants are in The Mayfair Hotel, a City acquisition in Eunisses Hernandez’ District 1* 448 people are housed with Time-Limited Subsidies “TLS”*, which are also called Rapid Re-Housing “RRH” (9%). *TLS typical duration = two years. I’m uncomfortable calling this subpopulation “permanently housed” like the City does. In 2013, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department “HUD” re-classified people on this kind of subsidy as “housed”, which made homeless counts appear to improve. Unfortunately, many households on TLS end up homeless again, like 300 families Byrhonda Lyons and Jeanne Kuang reported on in Calmatters a year and a half ago.* 204 people are in Interim Housing “IH” - “other IH” (4%). There is no explanation on what this housing is. Maybe it is “halfway” housing by the Office of Diversion and Re-entry “ODR”, SHARE! nonprofit, market-rate housing, or something else?Additional “sheltered” statuses:194 participants had other outcomes (4%) but many of them still probably need housing:* 89 people are incarcerated,* 31 people accepted transportation out of LA through “reunification” programs* 15 people are in medical or psychiatric hospitals, and* 5 people are in substance abuse treatment facilities,* 21 people are in A Bridge Home “ABH” congregate shelters,* 33 people are in “villages” of Pallet Shelter tiny structures.32% of enrollees are on the street, with one-third in touch with providers.* 1,714 out 5,320 participants “returned to homelessness”* 586 remain in touch with service providers* 61 people enrolled for zero days (1%).I wrote more about serious issues in Inside Safe here:Total enrollments +494% in 22 months.* March 2023 • 1,077* January 2025 • 5,320Enrollments have been tightly controlled to stay within budget constraints while focusing on highly-visible “encampments”. One of the top issues I encounter is qualified unhoused people who want to access ISP, but can’t. The bottleneck in “throughout” is lack of available housing and subsidies for permanently exiting participants.I am not enrolled in Inside Safe. My neighborhood was targeted for an Inside Safe operation last year, but it got cancelled. I wrote about it here: 49% of participants have documents; await housing placements.* 2,441 Document-ready (Avg. 411 days)* 2,553 Not yet documented (Avg. 136 days)The longer people stay enrolled, naturally, the more get their documents and they are less likely lose them.Participants spent 1,767,138 nights enrolled in Inside Safe in the first two years.Average enrollment: 355 nights (≈ 1 year)According to the data I obtained from the City Administrative Officer “CAO” Matt Szabo, 16 participants have been in Inside Safe for over two years continuously, which isn’t a great sign that housing placements are moving along expeditiously.But the fact remains: the program has retained them, as Mayor Bass promised. In Project Roomkey, hotels were constantly being “demobilized” to switch service providers, removing participants, and cause staff to have to seek unemployment. Inside Safe seems to be a more stable environment.83 people are known to have passed away (2%).🕯0.8% Annualized Program Mortality83 Inside Safe participants were known to have perished as of the end of 2024 (1.7%). That means the mortality rate of the first two years of Inside Safe is 1,662 per 100k. In 2023, the annualized mortality rate of people experiencing homelessness “PEH” in Los Angeles County was 3,326 per 100k, using figures from the Department of Public Health “DPH” and Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority “LAHSA”’s point-in-time “PIT” count. Inside Safe seems to significantly improve mortality, slashing rates for participants to levels closer to that of the general housed population.Disappearing Dwellings* 3,465 tents in 2020* 2,589 tents in 2025* *draftAfter reaching an all-time high of 3,465 tents in 2020 (this was technically a pre-pandemic count because it was in January), the number of tent-dwellings has been slowly but surely decreasing. The draft 2025 count, obtained from LAHSA through CPRA, indicates fewer than 2,600 tents City-wide, coming directly from tally sheets collected by point-in-time “PIT” volunteers. It is unclear if or when it will be publicly released. Meanwhile, other homeless populations, like people in emergency shelters, are on the rise.I wrote about LAHSA’s choice to withhold 2023’s dwellings counts here:I don’t celebrate reductions in makeshift shelters because, to me, tents represent survival and independence. 1,846 people are in Inside Safe motels and The Mayfair, with most having given up their survival supplies to redeem that opportunity, and their continued status indoors probably depends a lot on the Mayor getting re-elected.Outside Safe?Homeless victims of homicide:* 2022: 92 (per LAPD data via my CPRA).* 2023: 56 (per LAPD Homicide Report).* 2024: 8* (using MO code 1218) *preliminary from open data; not completeA sustained reduction in homicides with homeless victims is cause for applause. My 2024 data isn’t complete, but the difference of 36 fewer homicides in 2023 compared to 2022 is confirmed and significant. Inside Safe participants are technically still homeless until permanently housed, but their sheltered status likely contributes to safer conditions. I wrote about 2022’s 92 homicides with unhoused victims here:In November 2022, voters in the City of LA saw Karen Bass as the leader equipped to address the top issue of homelessness over her well-connected, wealthy competitor, Rick Caruso, who had the endorsement of the LA Police Protective League “LAPPL”, on which he is a commissioner. Maybe this achievement is what earned Mayor Karen Bass an endorsement from the police for her re-election, over Los Angeles Police Protective League Commissioner-challenger Rick Caruso.Considering Bass’s considerable achievements in public safety and shelter, it makes sense for Caruso’s own co-commissioners to endorse the incumbent mayor so early. But gaining the support of LAPPL is not the same as keeping the favor of the voting majority. What more would people like to see from the Mayor and her Inside Safe program before they feel confident re-electing her?What can you do?* Ask your council person what is delaying the opening of Homekey acquisitions* Introduce your neighborhood council to residents and staff at City-run shelters* Demonstrate around vacant housing units to demand immediate occupancy* Identify affordable rentals to facilitate “throughput” of shelter participantsRaw ISP participant status data:* Click here for January 2025 PDF* Click here for December 2024 data* Click here for October 2024 PDF* Click here for August 2024 PDF* Click <a target="_blank" href="https://docs.go...
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“The HACKLA” 2 • Reclaimer Benito Flores
May 2700:15:56Tap to summarize70-year-old Benito Flores uses a square frame in his tidy, green front yard as a mini-billboard to oppose state violence:“KEEP FAMILIES TOGETHER.”—Reclaimer Benito Flores’ signPRESS RELEASEMr. Flores has no rent debt.He has no behavioral issues.He has a codified right to purchase the home he’s occupied for over five years, which he would like to rightfully own.With all of these factors in his favor, as far as eviction cases go, Benito is easy to defend.His lease agreement with the housing authority says he will vacate the premises eventually.But the Housing Authority promised permanent housing placements, and they haven’t delivered.What will it take to redeem his right to buy?Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Affordable Sales ProgramBy law, Surplus Residential Property is disposed according to Government Code Article 8.5 [54235-54238.9]. A current low/moderate-income occupant (like Mr. Flores) has the highest priority for purchase, second only to a current occupant who is a former owner of the home.The law hasn’t stopped Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. This week, they extracted three similarly-situated neighbors from their Caltrans homes on Shelley Street in El Sereno’s sleepy 710 Corridor.If Benito is removed from the home, he will become a former tenant, and lose his priority to purchase the property at an affordable price. How shameless can the City, County and State be to work together to come between a peaceful elder and his legal right to own his dwelling?710 CorridorHow 600 homes in El Sereno and South Pasadena got condemned by the State Department of Transportation “Caltrans” just to be seemingly forgotten for decades is the type of nonfiction that sounds more like Los Angeles lore. Homeowners in the Caltrans Corridor were forced to accept buyouts through a legal freeway expansion process that began with the State acquiring the properties through eminent domain in the 1950s and 60s. Plans changed and changed again, and the 710 stub never got connected to the rest of the highway system as planned. The “just compensation” homeowners were paid didn’t replace single-family homes they were forced to relinquish. Many of them had to downsize and/or leave the State altogether. Renters would’ve had to seek leases elsewhere, and some would not be able to afford similar accommodations, especially when were competing with other desperate, displaced neighbors. Local landlords took advantage by raising rents. Families, many of whom were immigrants, some living with multiple generations under the same roof, resented loss of the stability they carved-out in El Sereno. Without support of neighbors, marginalized households’ economic injuries didn’t heal the same as they might’ve for more resilient, privileged households, who actually benefit from redevelopment. Generational resentments toward the State over the harm their families endured for this failed freeway project was passed down family trees.Even though the property transfers were fully legal, and most homeowners were compensated with real checks in amounts considered “fair”, the former residents of El Sereno missed the homes they knew, the neighbors they had, and the community to which they belonged. They told their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and for decades, the houses sat like time capsules, portals to better days and living reminders of when they were doing better, things were less expensive and life was simpler. March 2020 • COVID-19Slowly, some displaced descendants eventually returned to their old homes in the Corridor, accompanied by other local families needing adequate housing for themselves and their children during the pandemic.They call themselves Reclaimers.Former owner-occupants are legally recognized by law as having the highest priority to purchase back their homes at a reasonable price. Next in line are low-income occupants like Mr. Flores. Then, occupants who make up to 150% median income. Occupants with incomes 150% median or less are to be offered the homes at lower, affordable prices. Finally, public and private “housing related entities”, current tenants and former tenants get a chance to buy the homes at fair prices. All of this happens before the public has a chance to bid on the dwellings at an auction.11/26/20 • ThanksgivingOn Thanksgiving in 2020, everything was calm in the 710 Corridor until the police showed up to break up a community gathering of reclaimers and remove new occupants of surplus homes by force.When homeless families and elders occupied these government-owned homes during the pandemic, they began the hard work of improving long-neglected properties, allowing children to socially distance in their own bedrooms. As reclaimers and their network of neighbors were enjoying dinner, California Highway Patrol “CHP” violently extracted a mother and hogtied her teenage child in the middle of the street that splits the corridor.Earlier that day, the reclaimers had been thankful to be thriving in a global pandemic. Now, red-and-blue strobes illuminated an eerie, mostly-empty residential street, animating an advancing army. The onslaught of uninvited State police were ironically forgoing their own families’ festivities for overtime tearing their fragile households apart. The feast was forgotten and fear rightfully froze them. Even their new Councilman, the now- embattled Kevin de León, officially called the images of the CHP raid that circulated in the media “heartbreaking”. They were.The dizzying lights, shiny guns, clipping walkee-talkees, and shock of instant separation…it all felt devastatingly familiar.Witnessing the Reclaimers’ roller coaster of re-housing and immediate displacement play out on social media, I was instantly triggered by the similarities to my first ejection from stable housing. When I was in middle school, police detained my dad and told my mother, brother and I to leave our home indefinitely. We had just moved in that year, and it was a school night, and I had homework and planned to hang out with my friends that weekend.I wanted to support and protect these brilliant, resilient strangers, the Reclaimers, but didn’t know how.My For more on-the-ground perspectives from the Thanksgiving CHP raid, listen to the Thanksgiving 2020 Special of iheartradio’s “We The Unhoused” podcast (Episode 36) by clicking on the image below.WTU is produced by host Theo Henderson, who once lived in a public park in the City of Los Angeles, and Jamie Loftus.The people have spoken…WTU was a double-winner in the 2025 Webby Awards! Thank you for voting in support of Theo’s well-deserved wins.Full disclosure: I am honored to have spoken as a guest on WTU a handful of times, including last year with my sometimes-Substack co-writer, Zachary Ellison and most recently about my partner J’s legal woes.2021 HACLA LeaseMr. Flores and other reclaimers signed agreements with the Housing Authority of LA that said they would vacate the premises in a few years, so the homes could be returned to Caltrans. But, for their end of the deal, the Housing Authority promised to help Reclaimers secure permanent housing, and it didn’t follow through for many.Benito fears that if he leaves, the “offer of a lifetime” which he is clearly entitled to, by law, will never come. That’s why he won’t leave.Broken promisesNow, the Housing Authority was moving the goalposts, telling media all they technically have to do to live up to their end of the bargain was pass along referrals. If those referrals were full, unaffordable, inappropriate, or otherwise unavailable, well, that wasn’t their problem. That was basically the illuminating position of LA’s Housing Authority. One reclaimer, Ruby, did get a sustainable permanent supportive housing unit and another family got a Section 8 apartment. But there were dozens of reclaimers in several homes, and one single-room occupancy “SRO” unit plus one apartment wasn’t enough housing for all of them.HACLA never did come to the table with suitable replacements or federal vouchers for the rest. But the press covered the individual successes without questioning why universal offers weren’t made to all reclaimers, or why their right to purchase under Roberti wasn’t being acknowledged at all.It felt wrong to me for the City’s Housing Authority to threaten to remove 70-year-old Benito from his reclaimed, government surplus home of five years without making good on HACLA’s promise to permanently house him elsewhere. It wasn’t simply knowing the diabetic sores on his feet wouldn’t heal on the streets, or the understanding that he would never find a place in Los Angeles on his fixed income of Social Security.I found it deeply offensive that the Housing Authority would move in a way that is likely cause injury to elder Benito, in order to protect emptiness, enforce displacement, embrace waste and buckle down on the racist redlining restrictive real estate policies of decades past…all while we are in a homelessness state of emergency in the City and County. Seven people are dying on the streets of Los Angeles per day. When Mr. Flores moved in, the same statistic was three daily deaths.May 2022 • 710 cancelledThe highway extension ultimately got cancelled for good in 2022. It should have been good n...
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The HACKLA
Apr 28, 202500:24:47Tap to summarizeI’m Ruth roofless. I’ve been unsheltered in the City of Los Angeles continuously since 2017. I write about corruption and housing policy from the streets and host live Displacement X Spaces discussions on Sundays at 7pm PST on Twitter, where I’m @rooflesser.Federal Housing Choice Vouchers “HCVs”, also called “Section 8” are our country’s #1 “safety net” against mass homelessness. In the City of Los Angeles, a planned opening of the decade-long waitlist for housing subsidies turned into a trap that left applicants, including my partner and I, in even worse shape than we were in before. After applying for Section 8, our private data was in the hands of professional hackers demanding a ransom, making us virtual hostages.Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.2017 Lottery“We are very pleased to be opening our Section 8 waiting list after 13 years…”—Douglas Gunthrie 10/2/17When we applied for Section 8 in October 2022, J and I had been living together in the City of LA’s outdoor public spaces, such as under the highway and underground in storm drains continuously since October 2017, which also happens to be the previous time the City’s Section 8 waiting list opened. Before 2017, the City’s Section 8 waiting list had been closed since October 2004.The 2017 occasion, celebrated by Mayor Eric Garcetti and HACLA President and Chief Executive Officer “CEO” Doug Gunthrie, seems like it was nearly identical to the 2022 opening.“The application for the waiting list lottery is scheduled to open starting Monday, October 16, 2017 at 6:00 AM until Sunday, October 29, 2017 at 5:00 PM. Applications are available only online through hacla.hcvlist.org.”There doesn’t appear to be much public information about the 2004 event. But on August 4th, 2017, LA Sentinel’s Sentinel News Service reported CVP Associates, Inc. (CVP) won a competitive bidding process to handle an estimated 600k incoming applicants and manage the City’s Section 8 waitlist. CVP seems to be Customer Value Partners, Inc. (CVP), a consulting firm that boasts partnerships with Amazon Web Services “AWS” and Google Cloud.“At the end of the application period, HACLA will use a computer-randomized lottery to select up to 20,000 applicants for placement on the Section 8 Waiting List. As funding is available, HACLA will contact applicants for program eligibility determinations.“—HACLA.org 10/2/17 announcementAnirudh Kulkarni is the founder and CEO of CVP and previously worked as a founder at Answerthink $HCKT . CVP acquired Atlas Research (Atlas) in 2021. Atlas, founded in 2008, boasts the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs “VA” as a client, where it won a role in fulfilling a 10-year, $1B Veterans Health Administration’s “VHA” Integrated Healthcare Transformation “IHT” contract.2019 VASH cut off“A preference for assistance will be given to applicants who live or work in the City of Los Angeles and to applicants who are veterans or have a household member who is a veteran, released from such military service under conditions other than dishonorable.”—HACLA.org 10/11/22 statementLast year, I wrote about how the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing “HUD-VASH” vouchers for veteran families evaporated in 2019 in “Somehow at some point”, which was originally published by CityWatchLA.When Heidi Marston left the Veterans Administration “VA” for LA’s Homeless Services Authority “LAHSA” in February 2019, a program in Echo Park that had helped veterans utilize vouchers shut down and reopened as a LAHSA family shelter. Since that happened, the HACLA has not met HUD’s VASH utilization requirement of 70% or higher, and therefore the City of Los Angeles has been effectively cut off from receiving new HUD-VASH vouchers. The HACLA received only one allotment of 250 vouchers since 2019, or 50 vouchers per year, on average.The HACLA and LACDA, LA County’s Development Authority, combined, used to get over 800 vouchers per year, on average. Had the HACLA managed to lease-up more veteran households on VASH in 2019, Los Angeles could have received enough vouchers for every homeless veteran in LA to have permanent housing on the private market by now, assuming there was enough physical housing.“The opening of HACLA’s Section 8 Wait List lottery will help thousands of families who struggle to pay for housing on a fixed-income.”—Doug Gunthrie, The HACLA’s then-president and CEOToo often, government departments like the VA and our PHA seem to work with each other to deprive beneficiaries of entitlements. For example, until recently, veterans’ benefits counted as “income”. This caused veteran families to be ineligible for subsidized housing, and may have contributed to the low HUD-VASH utilization rate.Since the government is responsible for paying many “fixed incomes” like VA benefits, Social Security, disability and welfare, public housing authorities “PHAs”should be the voice of their tenants and applicants. PHAs could lobby for higher payments that allow recipients of benefits to afford rent without having to rely on multiple bureaucracies. 2021 3,365 EHVs“Rental subsidy programs reduce poverty, housing instability and homelessness...”Until 2021, Section 8 had never specifically sought to relieve recipients of homelessness by bringing people from the street indoors. Then 2021’s American Rescue Plan “ARP” funded 70k HUD Emergency Housing Vouchers “EHVs” targeting unsheltered households. Los Angeles received more than 5,000 with 3,365 coming to the HACLA on July 1st, 2021, and they had to be assigned to a household for leasing by September 30th, 2023. EHV applications were not accepted by HACLA directly and had to come from LAHSA, subjecting them to gatekeeping of nonprofit service providers, whose workers claim they are housing insecure themselves.Ultimately, the vouchers got leased up, but not quickly enough, causing Los Angeles to forfeit its chance at getting another allotment. EHVs are supposed to expire on September 30th, 2030.Last month, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department “HUD” sent a letter to public housing authorities around the country explaining that final payments would be made this month and they will likely last through the end of 2025. It explains that the funds don’t technically expire until September 30th, 2035, but that no more money will come in after this last payment, so landlords are going to stop getting paid, possibly in 2026, and people are going to be evicted.✉️ Read the letter from HUD.2022 LAUSD ransomOn March 10th, 2022, LA Unified School District “LAUSD” released a memo about multi-factor authentication “MFA”, but failed to implement it for six months. On Labor Day, September 5th, 2022, LAUSD was subject of a ransomware attack. Later that week, it decided to finally implement MFA. Ransom negotiations went on for about a month, with LAUSD flatly refusing to pay and the hackers eventually publishing a limited amount of data, giving the appearance that they were exaggerating the amount of information they possessed. It could be said that this attack led to positive changes within the department, and the solution was a practical one which isn’t likely to open a new “back door” for hackers.2022 Lottery“It’s been five years since we last opened our Section 8 waiting list and the need for rental assistance has grown…Our goal, with the reopening of HACLA’s Section 8 Waiting List Lottery is to help thousands of families who are struggling financially to find stable housing.”In October 2022, my partner J and...
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#UnitedtoHouseLA SPEECHLESS after Ava’s public comment
Mar 15, 202500:10:51Tap to summarizeThis is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com
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A tale of two Venice parking lots
Mar 6, 202500:03:33Tap to summarizeThis is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com
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Venice “A Bridge Home”
Mar 2, 202500:05:12Tap to summarizeThis is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit roofless.substack.com
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Advocating for Ava
Feb 17, 202500:12:50Tap to summarizeI’m Ruth and I’ve been living in public in the City of Los Angeles for around eight years. I’m one of Ava’s many advocates (including Ava herself!) trying to facilitate her transition into sustainable, dignified housing.For those who participate in the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Count, which has been delayed for one month because of the #LAfires, Ava V. may be a mark on a tally sheet or a tap in an app. But to others in Venice Beach, she’s a longtime neighbor, friend and empowered tenant.Ava has rented at her building near Muscle Beach for the past 20 years.She has already been evicted.Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Her days in her apartment are numbered. Despite the existence of many vacant affordable units on the Westside, Ava doesn’t have a place lined up and will be falling onto the street for the first time. She, like many, have found the process of accessing deeply affordable housing prohibitively convoluted.Ava spends most of her time enrolling in services, pursuing assistance, and seeking applications for affordable housing units, especially those targeted at older, low-income tenants with disabilities. She has done dozens of “intakes”, hoping each would be able to help.Over the past year, Ava has called 211, which only had help for families with minor children, LA’s Homeless Services Authority “LAHSA”, and the City’s Housing Rights Center, who said:“Try 211.”Neighbors supporting neighborsAva’s athletic neighbor in Venice Beach, Danny Slant extended a hand and made her story a feature on his YouTube channel, a slight deviation from his usual content. He had an open-hearted conversation with Ava and set her up with a GoFundMe. It did little to put a dent in her rent debt but warmed her heart, fed her over the holidays and made her feel seen. Danny calls Ava “a unicorn” because she’s such an upstanding neighbor who never causes commotion. He doesn’t want to see her on the streets or forced out of the neighborhood.Even if Ava’s fundraiser had raised enough to purchase an RV for several thousand dollars, she’d still have nowhere on the Westside where she’d be allowed to park. Slant’s other videos show vehicle dwellers being displaced and threatened with parking violations and poverty tows. Police enforcement makes downsizing into a vehicle seem impossible, but high costs make maintaining a life indoors prohibitively expensive, too.How did an incumbent tenant find herself in this untenable situation?Ava saw her financial hardship coming from a mile away after she went through a breakup and downsized from a “1BR” into a “0BR” unit in her rent-controlled building. She made the opposite move many years prior to accommodate her partner, occupying three different units at the same address over the past two decades.Ava applied for General Relief, Medi-Cal and CalFresh from Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services “DPSS” and was quickly approved for their full suite of benefits. It adds up to Last year, Ava had sought Social Security for long-documented health struggles (she has over 200 pages of records) that make it hard for her to maintain employment and income. Her 3-day notice to “pay or quit” and SSI denial came in last year on top of more bills: bad news on top of bad news. She is appealing the disability denial with the help of an advocate and a lawyer who will eventually pay himself out of the proceeds of her approval, whenever that finally happens. If she could make a similar deal with her landlord, she’d be okay.According to the overdue Sheriff’s notice to vacate on her door, Ava was to vacate her unit with her things before Monday November 11th, Veteran’s Day. She’d have been more than willing to leave, if only she knew where she was going.Solidarity in struggleBefore dawn on Tuesday, November 12th, peer advocate Vera C. took a bus to Santa Monica wearing a red jacket to identify herself when meeting Ava for the first time and as a show of solidarity with the tenant struggle. The same morning, activists were packing a downtown courtroom in support of a Filipina Housing for Juanita tenant who was facing her landlord. In October, Mohawk Tenants packed City Hall and got City Council to close an abusive “renoviction” loophole.Requesting a StayDressed in red, both Mohawk and Juanita supporters were successful in securing their immediate demands. Ava and Vera hoped they would be, too. At the self-help area of the Courthouse, Ava and Vera requested a 30-day stay of execution on the Sheriff’s notice to vacate, which had been posted the prior Wednesday, November 6th.As it turns out, Sheriffs seem to be at least several months behind on eviction enforcement, basically granting an automatic “30+-day stay” for everyone. Indeed, Ava’s eviction is just one instance in a huge system that has limits. One limit is LASD’s physical ability to carry out long lists of removals on behalf of landlords. The “eviction machine” presents quite a logistical challenge, like Santa making it to all of the “nice” households in one evening. This sad fact morphed into a silver lining because the removals ahead of hers kept Ava inside over the holidays. It also reminded that no matter how lonely her situation felt, she was not alone in her struggle.Not homeless enoughA staffer in City councilwoman Traci Park’s Westside (CD11) office was one of several people to say Ava’s not “homeless enough” for assistance, despite her having already been evicted. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department “HUD” defines four categories of homeless and considers Ava to be either literally homeless (Category 1) or imminently homeless (Category 2).For the record, I consider Ava to be homeless, and I am what they consider “chronic” and “unsheltered”. As fond as I have become of Ava, I don’t want her outside with me, if we can help it. It is really frustrating when I get told there is assistance for people like her but not for people like me, and she gets told that there is assistance for people like me but not for people like her. It feels like there isn’t actually assistance for anyone.Sheltered homelessness is increasing because of evictions.At the same time sheltered homelessness is on the rise, the number of makeshift dwellings and tents is slowly going down. This is a consequence of “sweeps”, not an effective re-housing system, which would produce similar results without depriving people of their means to survive on the streets.You can’t resist shelters that don’t exist!Calling homeless people “shelter resistant” requires there to be an open shelter for them to resist, and on the Westside, there are none. When I was speaking to CD11’s homeless deputy, she made remarks about Ava’s perceived “shelter resistance”. But Ava is not wrong in her impression that congregate shelter will expose her to infectious disease, violence, and theft. Sleeping in a row of bunkbeds in a shelter with dozens of others does not get Ava any closer to securing affordable housing versus what she can access on the street through outreach.Venice’s 154-bed, $8.6M Garcetti-era “A Bridge Home” (ABH) shelter shut down after operating for three years, and there was no plan in place to replace the beds before it closed. In this sense, CD11’s office staff seemed more resistant to maintaining shelter than Ava was in trying it.Temporary accommodations* Ramada Inn at 3130 Washington Blvd has 33 units that were supposed to be converted into housing by December 2024, according to Circle the News. However, the opening has been delayed indefinitely and it has actually been vacant since 2022. With nearly $20M spent so far on the acquisition and conversion, a new motel could have been developed for the cost.* Cadillac Hotel at 8 Dudley Ave was operating as a County-funded Project Roomkey, but it has since returne...
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“Just for the record…”
Jan 4, 202500:22:32Tap to summarizeThe passage of County Measure A in the November elections committed an estimated $1 billion in additional sales tax revenue for homelessness services and affordable housing initiatives. Two bodies now exist to administer these funds, which will be available for collection on April 1, 2025 (no joke!) with the first tranche of funding entering government accounts sometime in June 2025. In approving a permanent source of revenue, voters chose the new Measure A and repealed Measure H, making permanent the increased sales tax along with changes to administration and oversight that will improve the management of funds.The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (LACAHSA), already envisioned by local government officials from the County of Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles, and neighboring officials, and the Executive Committee for Regional Homelessness Alignment (ECRHA), although slightly different in size and scope, are now essentially the two sides of a pretty penny. Some had feared Measure A wouldn’t pass based on polling.Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.LACAHSA first met on May 17, 2023, but has essentially been a paper tiger with no funding. Now the tiger has teeth, with a planned 40% of Measure A revenues going its way and 60% going to ECHRA, which first met on February 20, 2024. If LACAHSA is the paper tiger, ECHRA is like the pen writing its notes. On both bodies sits Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who in February 2020, after being nominated to lead it by Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, said:“Our expansive region has notably lacked a formal forum where key decision-makers from multiple levels of government can convene, craft unified homelessness response policies, and cultivate shared plans for allocating resources.”Both LACAHSA and ECRHA have so-called leadership tables for intersectoral participation, with foundations such in as The California Endowment and Conrad Hilton Foundation having noticeable presences. Just how much money they might bring to the table to match taxpayer funding remains unknown, but it certainly is the aspirational goal.The shifting sands of Los AngelesLos Angeles as a region is severely underfunded on housing and homelessness, but ask most people, and they’ll tell you that money alone won’t solve the crisis. With an estimated roughly 40,000 people on the streets of the City of Los Angeles and an additional perhaps 35,000 spread across the County in other locales, the ability of government to organize and focus itself is in question.LACAHSA plans to spend the next 6 months developing a strategic plan for the implementation of what’s essentially a so-called “opportunity fund" to keep people in their homes through preservation and at the same time develop affordable housing to get people housed. To get LACAHSA going, $6 million was loaned from the County of Los Angeles to it to support staffing up and administrative costs with planned repayment after the first Measure A collection in June. Statutorily, LACAHSA can’t spend more than 10% of its roughly $400 million on overhead.“We’re gonna have to move different than other acronym agencies that we have….it’s showtime.”At their last meeting, first Vice Chair and one-time City Administrative Officer for the City of Los Angeles, Miguel A. Santana, reported that the ECRHA and Leadership Table for Homeless Regional Alignment (LTRHA) boards were, in fact, created by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (BOS) and clarified that the BOS determined the member composition for both, ECRHA and LTRHA. He further added that progress from both ECRHA and LTRHA will proceed even if changes in leadership occur within Los Angeles County and its cities. Board Member Jonathan Jager voiced an assertion that an expert in rental evictions (hopefully not a landlord...) should have a seat on the LTRHA. There’s some overlap between the groups.In passing its first budget, it’s unknown how close it intends to get to this cap. A request for comment to interim CEO Ryan Johnson wasn’t immediately responded to, nor is there at present a list yet of eligible projects, what one might call a target list.“As money comes in, we have to get the money out,”Johnson declared at LACAHSA’s meeting on December 18 at the Metropolitan Water District Headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles.LACAHSA itself lacks a “home” in that it doesn’t have office space staff yet, with Johnson noting he was taking“meetings from his car.”Apparently, the County of Los Angeles is unwilling to provide human resources or legal support to the new agency, so LACAHSA will have to use “search firms” to ensure that positions are adequately posted in accordance with law.LACAHSA’s board members at least have again rejected a proposed stipend for their additional service, with Johnson noting that he at least“wanted to give them the option.”The body is co-chaired by energetic Mayor Rex Richardson of Long Beach, who stated:“It’s important that we execute with urgency”in fulfilling the mission of what he called a body with the“potential to be the biggest social impact fund in America.”It’s unclear if LACAHSA’s funding can be for operating costs such as janitorial services and security within affordable housing buildings. Headlines have noted the recent decline of such services in adaptive reuse projects on Skid Row. More importantly, Los Angeles City, at least, the epicenter, has, due to its fiscal crisis, actually cut City sanitation’s budget by $15 million last year.The City also faces a dumping crisis, as highlighted in reporting by KCAL’s Jeff Nguyen, including in Pacoima, where an area has come to be dubbed “Produce Row” because of the dumping of food waste. The Los Angeles Times’ Steve Lopez, after several months of being camped out in the Westlake area, which includes MacArthur Park, is similarly at his wits’ end as to how to address “Yoshinoya Alley," which he claims is “ground zero” for the city’s fentanyl addiction crisis.The lone critic of the signature program under the Office of Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, has a problem equal to that of Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. Blight isn’t just urban in Los Angeles; it’s a suburban phenomenon too, and it spans all reaches of the City of Los Angeles from end-to-end, excepting wealthy pockets where policing seemingly keeps a check on it. With the threat of criminalization on the horizon on top of the failed effort known as “LAMC § (section) 41.18” to keep the unhoused from setting up encampments in certain zones, it’s clear that it’s not only the unhoused who are contributing to the idea of a lawless Los Angeles, but rather all of us failing together to create the conditions in society for future success.The only way we will beMoney isn’t the answer. Neither is blame. Rather, it’s the poor environment of civic engagement that’s holding back new efforts toward success. Richardson ended the LACAHSA meeting promising its members “Long Beach Pie” for their service, meanwhile in Los Angeles there’s not a single place outside of privately-funded philanthropic Missions on Skid Row where you can just walk up and get a meal. The same for housing. You can’t walk in to any shelters funded by the government and get a bed for the night.Reportedly, a new walk-up health clinic is being setup in Skid Row, the “STAR Clinic,” backed by State funding. Located at 242 E 6th St. in downtown Los Angeles, it features 1,300 square feet of clinic space within a 2,400 square foot facility operated in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and originally by the now-defunct Skid Row Housing Trust. It’s the collapse of this entity that has created perhaps the biggest vulnerability in the safety net in Los Angeles. But can LACAHSA, much less ECRHA, move fast enough to preserve this sizable chunk of single-room occupancy housing stock and keep them from turning into a complete blight under developer Leo Pustilnikov? It’s no secret where the money needs to go, but can it be delivered to the right places in time?To be effective, as Barger noted at ECRHA on December 13 in the posh headquarters of the California Endowment:“We have to avoid setting up for failure.”Mayor Karen Bass for her part, who sits on ECHRA alongside others such as Redondo Beach Councilmember Paige Kaluderovic and Monrovia Mayor Becky Shevilin. After the meeting, asked what she thought the biggest gap was, Kaludervoic, whose city was recently highlighted for its success in The Los Angeles Times, stated that more reliable “data” was needed. The existing agency for delivering this information, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), is on the re-alignment chopping block in favor of the new “Homeless Response” agency currently under study.To conduct the so-called “point-in-time”/PIT count, LAHSA relies on volunteers, with the next go-round set for January 21–23, 2025. The PIT count is mandated biennially by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), but the Greater Los Angeles region has elected to submit annual counts since 2016.LAHSA has a controversial new Chief Executive Strategist, Kris Fre...
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“Vertical Integration” for the Unhoused
Dec 13, 202400:18:10Tap to summarizeLos Angeles City council member Nithya Raman sat resolutely and declared in City Administrative Officer “CAO” Matt Szabo’s Homeless Strategy Committee meeting on December 9th to staffers from the Housing Department (LAHD), Housing Authority “The HACLA,” and Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) that she wanted:“a map of encampments” with an overlay of outreach teams.Moments before, Chief City Legislative Analyst John Wickham had questioned the arrangement in terms of “vertical integration,” a management science term for the combination of stages of production to address housing and homelessness through the two City housing agencies and the City-County joint-powers authority, LAHSA, at the center of it all.Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Raman soon ended the meeting, stating that they would reconvene again next year on January 7th. It was hardly a reassuring response given the more than 40,000 people who will spend the rest of 2024 unhoused in the City of Los Angeles. Makeshift shelters will almost certainly get bombarded with heavy winter storms between now and the first 2025 CAO Homeless Strategy committee meeting, and nighttime temperatures, which dropped briefly at the end of November before warming back up, are again dropping.For many it will be a long, cold winter in LA on the streets.LAHSA’s Commission, which meets Friday, December 20th at 9am at 637 Wilshire Blvd on the first floor, is comprised of five Mayor-appointed representatives of the City of Los Angeles and one appointed by each Supervisor of the five-member Board of the County of Los Angeles. Their finance committee meets this Friday, December 13th at 9am (in the Commission Room) and programs and contracts committee meets at 10:30am at 707 Wilshire Blvd on the 10th floor. Just weeks before, the agency’s responsibilities had been brought into question by County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath in putting forward a motion to study the creation of a new County agency for homelessness response. Implementation won’t occur until at least next year.Can LA wait that long?Block-by-blockThe Los Angeles City Council had approved last Wednesday, December 4th, an additional $440,000 to fund a federally-ordered audit underway commissioned under Judge David O. Carter with the agreement of Mayor Karen Bass. Now Carter’s court is set to reconvene on January 7th, 2025, to take up the Los Angeles Alliance for Human Rights’ motion to hold the City of Los Angeles in non-compliance for failing to reduce the number of encampments. The LA Alliance had been stymied by the city’s claim to lack “block-by-block” data in lieu of summary data, showing only slight progress toward the development of interim and permanent supportive housing units. Mayor Bass’s top homelessness advisor, Lourdes Castro-Ramirez, recently stepped down to become President & CEO of HACLA after 1 year and 2 months.Blocks away from City Hall, next to a fenced-in empty plaza, Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics loaded an elderly Latino man from a wheelchair in the streets. Bystanders had called for assistance, and LAPD officers came racing with lights and sirens, forcing a Waymo vehicle to the side. They couldn’t load his wheelchair into the ambulance from the side door, forcing the paramedics to again open the rear door. One of the LAPD officers went with him as another sped off to a new call, lights and sirens, again. His worn sneakers had sat on the wheelchair as his feet were visible in navy blue socks. Just how much money from LA’s “Homelessness Industrial Complex” hits the streets? That’s what Judge Carter had demanded to know only weeks prior, and yet here was anecdotal evidence that the so-called “Poverty Pimps” were again getting the better of the funding. The man thankfully hadn’t been struck by a vehicle.However, block-by-block data does already exist, and it does show a reduction in the prevalence of “encampments.” Specifically, it shows a significant decline in the number of tents in 2024. Each year (except 2021, which was cancelled due to COVID-19), USC has counted unhoused peoples’ “dwellings” (tents, makeshift shelters, RVs, and vehicles) as part of the point-in-time “PIT” homeless count. Census tract-level data is publicly available for 2017 through 2020, 2022, and 2024. Additionally, Ruth Roofless obtained the 2023 dwellings data, which USC advised LAHSA not to release to the public, using the California Public Records Act, allowing us to analyze trends in the number of tents in the City of LA by council district and even by block.This easiness and peril of mapping was readily illustrated by the emergence of an X account, formerly known as Twitter, claiming to do exactly this task. It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the account and contingent website, with the operator claiming that the Los Angeles map was a “pilot” project. Advocates for the unhoused are deeply concerned that such records will be used to facilitate criminalization and increase targeted violence.X owner Elon Musk recently stated:“the word ‘homeless’ is a lie,”calling it:“a propaganda word for violent drug addicts with severe mental illness”while attacking the “Housing First” strategy in response to reporting in the San Francisco Chronicle. The billionaire Elon Musk is a close advisor of President-elect Donald Trump with a potential cabinet post in a new Department of Government Efficiency.Bed-by-bedThe sudden fixation on “block-by-block” results is curious, because the City doesn’t fund a single walk-up shelter. How are people supposed to literally “get off the streets” when there’s nowhere to go sleep indoors immediately? Additionally, Roofless secured census-tract-specific eviction data from the LA Courts, showing that dozens of homes in the City of LA are being vacated daily. And Westside Current has been reporting on Project Homekey, some of which have stayed vacant for years, which, despite having been purchased with State funds years ago, continue to be granted additional money by City Council. This all is simply not working.For example, just last week, the Ramada Inn at 3130 Washington Blvd in Marina Del Rey received an additional $1.5M, this time from HHH funds. The 33-unit Homekey was purchased for $10M and received an additional $5M, totaling $16.5M. It was supposed to open as housing in December, according to Circle the News, but CD11 Councilwoman Traci Park's homelessness deputy Carol Williams said that date was “exaggerated,” and opening is now projected in 2025. The issue of vacancy and eviction has not been addressed in the LA Alliance court, although property and business owners comprise most of the members of the Alliance. However, the scope of the audit prescribed by Alvarez & Marsal has expanded several times to include LAPD spending at the suggestion of intervenor Shayla Myers with LAFLA, Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, on behalf of affected unhoused people, especially those on Skid Row. This also includes spending by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.United to House LA…but not until next yearThe oversight body for United to House LA, “ULA,” meets at 2:30 pm on Thursday, December 12th, in the Metropolitan Department of Water and Power chamber, where the scandal-plagued DWP Commission and newly-formed LACAHSA also convene. ULA’s prior meeting was supposed to occur after LACAHSA's first meeting since Measure A’s passage but was canceled. Recently, former City Attorney Mike Feuer, at the center of a scandal that included the DWP over rate-fixing as reported by L.A. TACO journalist Lexis-Olivier Ray, was hired by a prominent legal-aid nonprofit, the Inner City-Legal Center. The announcement was met with outrage.This week in City Council, a report was received from ULA outlining this year and next year’s budgeted funds versus actual expenditures so far this year. The report reflected delayed implementation of ULA’s income assistance program for elderly and/or disabled people who have fallen behind on their rents. The rollover of 100% of this year’s budgeted $11.5M was clearly communicated in the attached slides. LAHD’s ULA dashboard shows that money has consistently been coming in from the “mansion tax” since its passage, with the most transactions coming from CD11 (Traci Park), followed by CD5 (Katy Yaroslavsky).Mansion taxes were supposed to prevent displacement, but their program to keep vulnerable tenants housed went unfunded in 2024.With both of ULA’s top-contributing districts being on the Westside, it makes sense for the property owners paying the “mansion tax” to want to see results. Many of their property transfers occurred a year or more ago, and they want to know where the money went. But expecting results in the form of less visible displacement is contingent on program implementation, not tax collection alone. Perhaps the FBI should be investigating just why exactly Los Angeles is so consistently so bad at getting results and where the money has gone.ULA’s income assistance program to keep vulnerable tenants housed won’t begin until sometime next year. Meanwhile, without delivery of promised anti-displacement measures, evictions are overwhelming the Court and Sheriffs, with 1,453 unlawful detainers originating from within the City of LA over the Thanksgiving holiday between November 4th...
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“Somehow at some point” Part 2
Dec 11, 202400:13:38Tap to summarize“Somehow at some point” parts 1 and 2 were originally published together by CityWatchLA in their newsletter on December 5th, 2024.I’m Ruth @roofless and I write about homelessness and housing in the City of Los Angeles. I’ve lived on the streets here continuously for seven years and first experienced displacement in 2003. I write a Substack series with USC whistleblower Zachary Ellison about the legal landscape of landlessness in LA. Zach has made himself a fixture in the courtroom of U.S. Judge David O. Carter, where major settlements affecting the unhoused like LA Alliance, addressing our civil rights and compelling “bed” creation, are enforced. In another settled lawsuit overseen by Carter, veteran plaintiffs led by Jeffery Powers sued the V.A. over illegal leases and insufficient housing at the West LA Soldiers’ Home.In part 1, I dove into the most recent Powers hearing and revisited a 2019 displacement of veterans from Echo Park which coincided with a near-cessation of veterans’ housing voucher awards. In part 2, I interrogate top-paid homeless advocates for aligning with gentrification goals over housing and healing and suggest a simple solution.The Raid on the LakeIn March 2021, two years after the 2019 closure of the Billets cottages and just one mile away, tranquil Echo Park Lake resembled somewhat of a war zone. LAPD swarmed in helicopters overhead and formations of riot cops unconstitutionally placed dozens of members of the press including L.A. TACO’s Lexis Olivier-Ray and Spectrum’s Kate Cagle in flexcuffs. They brutally concussed a housed civilian, putting them in the hospital and broke one protestor’s arm. LAPD’s raid of Echo Park Lake, which happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately displaced around 200 unhoused people, although some temporarily made it into shelter through Project Roomkey at the downtown L.A. Grand Hotel, three miles away, while people nearby in Skid Row were passed over for those same rooms. LAPD’s overkill response cost the City around $2M.Thanks for reading roofless! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The closure was a violent, expensive and unnecessary show of force, decommissioning the entire park from all public access for two months, and arresting it behind rented chain link fences for more than two years. CD13 Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, whose district included Echo Park and Hollywood, was unseated in 2022. His loss was attributed to unsatisfactory leadership during the pandemic, including his brutal handling of EPL. His successor Hugo Soto-Martinez finally removed Echo Park Lake’s gentrification fences in May 2023. Some speculated that the rental fence was possibly due for return by then, anyway. It’s unclear just how many veterans may have been displaced in the EPL operation, but documented outreach regarding Economic Impact Payments conducted by National Veterans Foundation “NVF” on May 26th, 2021, just two months after the raid, shows that at least one unhoused veteran, Marvin, was found at EPL as soon as it reopened.LAHSA’s lack of AuthorityHeidi Marston, CEO of LAHSA at the time, made an appearance at EPL during the raid. She handed people cardboard boxes to aid in their moves to nowhere (or possibly serve as their new homes?). Knock.la’s Jamie Loftus reported Marston’s delayed reaction, quoting her regrettably musing:“…it didn’t need to happen this way.”If only the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority had exercised any actual authority, such as instructing LAPD to stand down, demanding Sanitation back off of their clients while outreach worked to find them housing, attending City Council during LAMC § 41.18 hearings, or opposing the Recreation and Parks Department’s plans to close the public park in a pandemic, things really could have ended differently.A lot of people showed up in incredible ways to show solidarity with the unhoused of EPL in March 2021. But many people failed the community, too. Marston’s job as the top-paid homeless advocate in the region should have given her a little more confidence to robustly oppose the violence done to her clients rather than wishing things happened differently.Interestingly, Marston had worked as an executive for the VA prior to coming to LAHSA as a Chief Program Officer just two months before the veterans were removed from The Billets. Marston had worked for the VA in different capacities since 2009 and for a period worked as an assistant to the VA Secretary in DC. Her transition to LAHSA and exit from the VA are both listed as occurring in February 2019 on LinkedIn. Did Marston bring the Gateways contract to LAHSA? If she did, she knew exactly what she was doing, because she would soon be rewarded with a promotion to CEO.Displacements don’t happen in a vacuum.Gentrification pressures had been growing for years in Echo Park, with developers exploiting the “substantial remodel” loophole to evict multigenerational families from rent-controlled buildings. The “renoviction” removal mechanism was finally addressed by Housing and Homelessness Committee and City Council in November, thanks to tenant advocacy by Echo Park’s Mohawk Tenants.Young Mohawk tenant organizer Matthew Mata and his family pleaded not to have to relocate from Echo Park for his senior year of high school. Mohawk’s supporters packed City Hall dressed in red, with some describing through translators during public comment experiences of being threatened with eviction as many as three times in the past few years under the now-closed legal loophole.The Billets should have been studied and replicated for its ability to accommodate veterans, who some consider to be among the most difficult-to-serve clients because of their complex needs compounded by warranted distrust of the system. By managing to convert the majority of participants into residents of permanent housing, despite post-traumatic stress, serious mental illness and substance abuse, The Billets seemingly overcame the challenge of “acuity” in homelessness services, at least when it came to LA’s veteran population. Acuity has since been contemplated in the LA Alliance for Human Rights v Los Angeles court hearings. Unhoused people “with serious mental illness” are considered inappropriate for City shelters in the settlement. Alliance was filed in March 2020, right at the onset of the pandemic, and settled in 2022. It is overseen by the same judge as Powers, David O. Carter, himself a Vietnam veteran and double UCLA alum.At the most recent Alliance hearing, the flag-draped tent across from the new federal courthouse was similarly addressed by the plaintiffs, to justify their demand for an evidentiary hearing. It didn’t go over too well, but an audit of spending on homelessness was demanded by the court, which is currently being conducted by firm Alvarez & Marsal and expected to deliver answers by February 2025.Conflicting understandings of “harm” in courtOn November 13th, the VA said it will be irreparably harmed if forced to add 100 modular housing units on-site. Plaintiffs’ lawyers said unhoused veterans (not named plaintiffs, who are now housed) will die. The VA’s lawyers wanted to know which ones, and the plaintiffs’ lawyers pointed to a 2,000 “by-name list” of unhoused veterans who they allege are connected to outreach or services, as well as the flag-draped tent near the courthouse. The West LA VA “Soldier’s Home” currently accommodates only around 300 veterans in housing on its property, and it formally objects to the Court wanting the VA to add 100 more units on-site by February, which would increase its housing capacity to around 400.Does the VA mean it can’t federally subsidize those proposed units and will be forced to pay “out-of-pocket” for operating them, so it won’t be a profitable venture for the VA? Is that really irreparable harm that can be compared with the physical, mental and mortal costs of homelessness?The truth is of course murkier than that, as the VA is expressing reluctance to accept what is essentially a packaged deal to implement a controversial Master Plan at the Soldier’s Home which includes retail development. The shopping component, which will open the Veterans’ property in West LA up to the general public, has an expedited timeline of two years, placing it at a higher priority than permanent housing for veterans. The VA may experience irreparable harm if it swaps out one group of illegal tenants (currently UCLA, the Brentwood School, Bridgeland Oil and SafetyPark are occupying the VA on leases that were deemed void by the Court) for another set of leases which also does not principally benefit unhoused disabled veterans and their families.The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the d...
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